


Breathing lessons

by empyrean



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: ALL THE GOOD STUFF, Fencing, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5435156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empyrean/pseuds/empyrean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celena Schezar, on how to be Celena Schezar. In the aftermath of a war, how to learn to be yourself again is probably harder than anything else. In which the King of Fanelia and the former last Dragonslayer enter into the strangest friendship in Gaea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Letterblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/gifts).



It all begins because of Van. In the following few months of her life, Celena discovers that many things in her life (to her amusement and Allen’s eternal annoyance) can be attributed more or less directly to the King of Fanelia. In the following weeks after the war, Asturia had promised aid to Fanelia in rebuilding the kingdom’s shattered centre , and had placed Allen and the Knights to back up the capital’s reduced guard.

(Of course, there’s that rumour that Princess Eries had pushed hard for Allen to be removed from the Asturia, but Celena doesn’t understand why yet)

And where Allen goes, Celena does too. After all, where else is there for her?

Her introduction to Fanelia is the high roof of the throne room, the crush of what feels like half of Gaea pressing together to hear what will become of Fanelia in the wake of the war.

There are speeches. _Long_ ones.

Allen sits at the head of the collection of the Knights of Caeli, Celena next to him, twitching her sleeves and pulling at a lace collar that doesn’t feel right even though it has been tailored for her.

The envoy is giving what sounds – to her ears, anyway – a speech concerning Fanelia that mainly sounds like it’s still about the glories of Asturia. She frowns up at the throne when the envoy finishes to polite scattered applause. The King leans forward.

‘Well, for starters I’m glad that Asturia has finally found Fanelia on the map.’

Her brother shakes his head, sighs _for heaven’s sake, Van_ under his breath. But even Celena can hear there’s no heat in it.

The talks go on for several hours, with the King injecting comments full of what to most ears would be polite flattery, but she can hear the steel in his voice.

Later, it is just her brother and the King in a quiet corner of the room, talking about things she doesn’t understand and knows she isn’t meant to hear.

‘Really, Van?’

‘So? They think that I’m an idiot-’

‘And they’d be right.’

‘-and it’s nothing they didn’t think already.’ The boy-king of Fanelia sighs. ‘Let them think I’m stupid and Fanelia is backwards. If they think I’m too much of an idiot to negotiate properly they won’t notice when they give me exactly what I what.’

‘That’s…remarkably canny. For you.’

‘Hey, didn’t you hear? I ended a war the other day.’

‘I think you had some help.’

Celena had been under the impression that her brother and Van Fanel didn’t particularly like each other, but as she listens with one ear on them and then other on the mingling, whispering crowd in front of her she wonders what exactly she does know about her life and the people in it.

She wanders the halls – constantly shadowed by a handmaiden or the King’s sulky cat friend – reads her way through the library and tries to remember what it’s like to be in Celena’s skin.

It’d be easier, she thinks, if being a lady wasn’t so _boring_. She has nothing to do but sit and simmer with memories she can’t quite remember and emotions she can’t lock up.

_He_ roils in her, anger sinking into the empty spaces.

And when she wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s with the screaming of metal in her ears and the taste of blood on her mouth.

She has her own room in the palace. High up. She likes them – high places. It makes her think of a statues, and metal, and control under her fingertips. Her balcony looks out over all of Fanelia, but now even that feels like a cage. She can’t step out into air be carried away anymore.

But she has a nice room near Allen’s, and a balcony with a trellis leading up to the roof. The trellis is woven with the withered remains of flowers, but it’s sturdy enough.

She tests it carefully, casting glances around and trying to convince herself that no one is going to come sweeping out of the shadows and drag her down to a room filled with knives. Maybe it’s that thought that convinces her to start climbing. She can feel the dust of petals under her toes, and the smell of roses lodges under her fingernails.

She’s almost on the roof when she realises that she isn’t alone.

A young man is watching her progress.

The King looks much younger out of the traditional regalia of Fanelia.

The white-hot flash of rage catches her by surprise, and fades as soon as she tries to work out where it has come from.

Van Fanel is still watching her.

Celena tries to think of something that will explain why she is trying to climb the castle walls. All that comes out is the obvious.

‘You’re King Fanel.’

‘And you’re Allen’s sister.’

He’s looking at her carefully, the same way as a little girl she used to stare at the spiders in their webs in the corner of her room. Because you should never look away from dangerous things.

She suddenly remembers she’s hanging from the roof of this man’s castle.

‘I… may I…’

He snorts, reaches out and hauls her up onto the roof.

There are loose, burnt shingles under her feet, but he holds her hand steadily until she’s sat with her skirts tucked neatly under her. A silence unfolds between her, uncomfortable enough that she starts racking her brain for ways to break it. She could ask about the weather, and that would be her tiny pool of ‘ladies’ conversation’ dried up.

So she asks about Fanelia.

And he tells her. About the towns, and the lakes, the dragon’s nest and the high waterfalls deep in the golden woods. Pride laces every word.

‘Fanelia is a fortunate place. To have a King that loves it so much.’

She sneaks a glance at him as he shifts slightly.

The odd pink pendant glimmers in the light from the stars and moons overhead. A face crawls into Celena’s memory. Wide green eyes.

She’s heard the whispers. Rumour says that the King is _odd_. That he fell in love with a girl from the Mystic Moon. _Is it any wonder_ , says gossip hidden behind hands, _with_ his mother _being what she was?_

They have the sense, at least, not to say it where the King can hear them.

It becomes their little ritual. Awkward conversation under a sky with two moons.

 

*****

 

Celena breathes in the air of Fanelia, soaks up the chatter and bustle of life in the market streets and feels more like a person than she has in ages.

But it’s still there.

She sits with her book in the evening, listening to the scritch-scratch of Allen’s pen and trying to ignore Dilandau pulsing under her skin.

_I could kill everyone in this room and be out before anybody missed me._

It’s a terrible thought. A _Dilandau thought_ but it’s her voice saying it.

‘Quit.’

She doesn’t realise she’s said that aloud until Allen asks her if she needed something. She shakes her head, silently.

_Allen would never fight back._ And the voice is right. Her brother would let her stab him through the heart, if it came to that.

She snaps the book shut, and manages to just about drag up an apologetic smile when Allen starts.

‘I’m going to sleep.’

He squints at her over the candlelight, and she braces herself for the inevitable question. In the end though he just smiles and bids her goodnight. She isn’t sure whether he doesn’t notice the tension or if he’s trying to be kind – the result is the same, anyway. She heads up her room, clambers out onto the balcony and up to the roof, sucking in great lungfuls of air to try and quiet herself even as rain lashes down.

The drizzle makes everything fuzzy, soothing the still-charred edges of Fanelia and giving it a soft, dream-like look.

It still doesn’t dissipate the thick, cloying heat. Celena breathes in damp air thick as smoke and is a little relieved when her clothes soak through. At least she can blame her shaking limbs on the cold. She has no idea how long she’s been up there when the King found her.

‘Celena?’

She jumps, the fingers knotted in her skirts going white. Van is squinting at her through the curtains of rain.

The sickening pulse of anger makes her want to vomit.

_You killed my boys,_ **_my boys_** _mine mine **mine**_

She swallows, hard, and chokes words out around the screaming in her head. ‘I need you to tell me what I have done.’

‘Celena, I don’t-’

‘Because Allen never tells me anything _and I can’t stand it anymore_.’

‘He loves you.’

‘He loves his little sister. Now I’m here and I don’t think he knows what to do.’

‘Probably. But he loves you. And you’re both alive. Be grateful that you were lucky enough to get that from the universe.’

‘I don’t want to be _grateful_ , I want him to _talk_ to me.’

Van’s jaw sets. ‘What do you want him to say? That you killed and destroyed at the behest of Zaibach but it’s _all_ _fine_ now?’

‘Anything would be better than the _pity_.’

A considering look.

‘What brings this on?’

‘He’s still part of me. I can still hear what he thinks.’ She doesn’t clarify who he is. She doesn’t need to. She takes a breath that crackles in her lungs. ‘Will you kill me, if it looks like I’m going to hurt somebody?’

She isn’t sure what she’s expecting. The harsh bark of laughter isn’t it. When she looks up, she can see the rage she’s always felt in him burning behind his eyes.

‘After all of this? Your brother who never stopped looking for you even after a decade had passed. The people who _died_ getting you here.’ Jajuka’s face unfolds in front of her eyes and she flinches. ‘You shouldn’t be petitioning for someone to kill you. _You owe it to them to live_.’

‘I- I apologise.’

He can feel his gaze on the top of her head. Eventually he sighs. ‘Come on. You freeze to death and Allen will have my head.’

She can feel the anger still sparking under his skin – it burns him inside, but it doesn’t drown him, not like her – but he helps her down off the roof and down the winding corridors with a hand that’s gentle around her wrist.

He stops beside a door, lighting a candle and ushering her in front of him.

‘Is this proper?’

He grins, a bright spark in the near-darkness. ‘You’re welcome to walk back. I love to her what you say to the guards when they find you next to my rooms.’

She huffs. She _is_ cold, after all. She steps under his arm and into the room, looking around with curiosity. All paper screens and wooden walls – it’s one of the things that endears him to his people, she’s heard, his traditional taste in Fanelian decor.

‘Stay here.’ He brushes past her, disappearing around one of the paper screens and deeper into the apartments.

The heavy pulse of remembered rage still beats behind her eyelids, and she looks around to try and find something else to think about other than the empty voice in her ears. There’s a tiny stack of paper on a table, and when she peers closer she can see that the top piece is elaborately illustrated, with strange letters etched along the edges.

She picks the top piece up. Two people under a blazing sun.

‘It’s from Hitomi.’

She startles. Van is standing by the door, towel hanging from his hands.

‘She leaves me them. Messages, I mean. I put the card pack down at night and in the morning the top card is always different.’

‘Hitomi?’ She tests the strange name. The vague memory is there, green eyes and a pendant that flashes like dragonfire. ‘The girl from the Mystic Moon?’

‘Earth, she called it.’ Van shrugs. She looks back down at the paper in her hand.

‘What does this one mean?’

Van Fanel, King, dragonslayer, hero, flushes redder than the heart on the cards.

‘The Lovers.’

He hands her the towel, plucking the card from her hands but putting it down with the others like it’s made of crystal.

She looks at the innocent stack of paper next to the King’s bed and dimly realises that Dilandau gone quiet, and even more dimly realises that he is _afraid_ of her. The girl who guards the King of Fanelia’s dreams.

The towel gets her hair mostly dry, but she can’t do much about her dress and when Van guides her back down the corridors towards her room she’s keenly aware she’s going to need to come up with a fairly good excuse for her brother. The one now hurrying towards her.

‘Celena, thank the gods, where have you been?’

‘I…um…’

She can _feel_ the smug amusement at her expense when Van speaks, ‘She got locked in the library.’

She feels guilty, at the way Allen relaxes when reassured his sister _isn’t_ going mad. He frowns though, when he sees her dress.

‘You’re wet.’

She tries to mimic Van’s shrug, smiles. ‘I tried to climb out the window.’

Allen laughs (and how long has it been, that she doesn’t recognise the sound when she hears it?). She accepts Allen’s kiss on her forehead, bows her head to Van and walks back to her rooms on her brother’s arm feeling calmer than she has in months.

She only realises later that Van never actually answered her question, but that night, she dreams of feathers and a stone that swings perfectly in time.

*****

They spend the next few weeks studiously avoiding each other. Celena can still hear his lecture ringing in her ears – _you owe it to them to live_ – and maybe he is no longer sure what to make of her in return.

She reads, and walks, and when she passes by him in the corridors when she’s with her brother she tries not to catch his eye. She takes to wandering the castle again, but even with the rooms filled with people she feels lonelier than she has in months.

She’s leafing through yet another book in the library (her Fanelian is poor, but she’s not really reading, anyway) when a picture card it dropped into her hands like a bookmark. A winged being with two cups. It’s actually appropriate, she thinks and she blinks up at Van over the top of the pages.

‘Temperance. I think she’s saying I’m being a stubborn idiot.’

‘Your Majesty?’

‘You asked me a question and I didn’t want to answer.’

_Will you kill me?_ whispers in the space between them.

She swallows. ‘You never actually told me what I did.’

‘Nothing. You did nothing.’

She blinks up at him, tilting her head and trying to see past the shadows the windows cast on his face. It doesn’t feel like forgiveness. Just a statement of fact, and suddenly Celena isn’t sure what she was looking for.

‘You say that,’ she starts carefully ‘But if I apologised, would you accept it?’

‘No.’ She must flinch, because he sighs. ‘A year ago, a _month_ ago, I would have killed you and been glad of it. And then Allen would have killed me, everyone would have kept fighting and that would have been the end of everything. It wouldn’t have been fair. I wouldn’t have been right. But I wouldn’t _know_ that. I won’t have an apology off you because you have nothing to apologise for.’

And what can you say to someone carefully pressing a clean slate over the last ten years of your life? Celena’s voice cracks when she speaks. ‘That’s… that is kinder than I deserve.’

Van shuffles awkwardly. ‘Thank Hitomi, if you ever meet her. She’s the only one who ever saw any sense.’

She likes it, she decides, the soft edge the corners of his constant frown take when he thinks of the girl with the green eyes.

‘I’m going to marry her.’

‘But she lives on the Mystic Moon.’

‘In the last few months I’ve found a Guymelef that can turn into a dragon, discovered that Fate alteration is a thing that can happen and de-stabilised the most powerful nation in Gaea. Hitomi being on another planet is neither here nor there. And anyway, didn’t anyone tell you? I’m the King of Fanelia.’ He looks down at her, thoughtful. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘My hair. I’m growing to grow it,’ she clarifies against his confused frown. ‘It was the first thing to go, that’s what Jajuka said.’

He looks amused. ‘That is the most important thing you can think to do?’

She nods, smiles.

_I’m going to grow it out. And no one’s going to tell me no._

*****

 

The next time they meet on the roof, her hair is starting to curl around her shoulders.

Allen always ruffles it gently and looks pained in a way she’s learnt meant that he’s happy and doesn’t know what to do with it.

It doesn’t make her feel particularly ladylike, but it makes her feel like Celena and she supposes that is the best result she can hope for. She kicks her legs over the sides, turning her arm over in the soft moonlight beaming down. At this point, she doesn’t even jump when she hears his voice behind her.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘This.’ She points to the scar that runs across the soft inside of her arm. It’s long and white, smooth to the touch. ‘I can’t work out where it’s from.’

‘Probably from the guymelef overheating. It happens when you overwork the mechanisms. See?’ He turns his own hands over, white marks like snow decorating his arms up to his elbows.

‘Oh.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t remember most of that part.’

She looks up at him in the long silence that follows, and realises he’s just as uncomfortable with the direction in conversation as she is. ‘Well,’ she points to her cheek, ‘I know where this one is from.’

He snorts. ‘You were trying to kill me.’

‘Only because you tried to kill me first.’

‘Ah, right.’

He leans back on his hands, staring up at the blanket of stars overhead. She tucks herself up, rubbing at the long line that still curls along her cheek down to her jaw. There’s a pulse of heat, her breath splintering in her lungs and heartbeat pulsing in her ears. Faces flicker in and out of view. Breath on a cold window. There’s a faint, high, thin scream that she gradually realises is her crying Jajuka’s name.

There’s a weight on her shoulder, leather cracking next to her ear. Van’s glove.

‘Is it always like that?’

‘No. Yes. Sometimes.’ She breathes out in one long gasp. ‘Only when I remember.’

He tilts his head, and for a minute the only sound on the roof is her breathing.

‘Come on. We could both use a distraction.’

He leads her off the roof but bypasses his rooms and enters a long wooden room. Soft matting meets her footsteps and she turns to admire the doors, thrown open to the night air with a view that stretches across the rest of Fanelia.

She jumps when something is shoved beneath her nose, and takes it without thinking. ‘And what am I supposed to do with… this?’

It’s a sword, in the same style as the one that sits at Van’s hip. She holds it with her fingertips, earning laughter from the man in front of her.

‘It doesn’t bite, you know.’

‘No, it does worse than that.’ She frowns. ‘What do you want me to _do_ with it?’

Van turns, taking steps away from her and drawing the sword at his side and pointing the tip at her. She blinks, and wonders if he is withdrawing his belief that she did nothing.

Van’s smile turns challenging ‘I know you can fight.’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Then it was someone else I gave that to, then?’ The sword twitches, pointing at her cheek. She flinches, but the burning is back, the fury bubbling back up from wherever it goes when her eyes open. She can see when Van notices, shifting backwards, his arm rising and legs settling into moves she’s watched Allen perform every morning since before she can remember.

_You killed my boys_ , the voice whispers. Celena screams as she strikes, _fast_ , faster than anyone could have expected, catching Van on the arm as he moves to block. He twists away, metal screaming and sparks flying as she lunges after him.

It’s deadly silent in the hall, but all she can her is the blood singing in her ears and the breaths clawing out of her lungs. She over-steps, and Van is there, flicking the blade from her hands across the floor. She runs, picks it up, and swings. The blade stops a hair’s breadth from Van’s face.

And just like that, the anger melts out of her, foil slipping from nerveless fingers.

She gasps, dress ties straining as she watches Van wipe at the blood on his arm with the back of his hand. A bright streak.

‘Your form is terrible.’

Her laugh is unexpected, barking out between one breath and the next. She has calluses on her fingers. A scar on her cheek. Muscles used to fighting.

She doesn’t remember any of it.

‘I don’t think that’s the only part of me that’s terrible.’

For once, the corseting is a comfort. It helps her keep her back straight as she meets Van’s gaze, even as she wants to wilt back into herself.

‘No, you’re fine.’

He picks her sword up and presses it back into her hand.

‘Remember to move your feet this time.’

When their blades meet again, Celena can feel herself smiling.

 

It doesn’t remain a secret for long, of course. This a palace and even in the presence of the King the walls have ears.

She’s ensconced in the library, letting Van pass volumes of Fanelian history down to her when Allen enters like a thunderstorm.

‘Fanel, have you been teaching my sister how to fight?’

His voice cracks like a whip in the room, and the few servants present take their opportunity to vanish. Celena’s looking at her brother, but she can _feel_ the smirk spreading across Van’s face. ‘Yes.’

‘How would you like to be commemorated after I kill you?’

‘Brother-’

‘With a massive shrine entitled ‘you still owe me, Schezar’.’

‘Van!’ She pinches his elbow, turning to her brother. ‘You don’t need to fight each other. If you think Van is _dishonouring_ me or something ridiculous like that, I’d take care of him myself.’

‘I’d listen to her, she fights better than you do.’

‘ _Van_.’ Allen barks, and she can see his control fraying. It’s incredible, her brother is solemn and controlled but Van can reduce him to red-faced anger with one well-placed remark.

Van, for his part, holds up his hands, still smirking, and backs out of the room.

Allen looks down at her silently, looking pulled between anger and pain and the part of her capable of shame shrivels inside her.

‘I thought this was _over_. That you are who you were before.’

‘ _I’m trying, but I **don’t know who Celena is**_.’

It’s the first time she’s raised her voice in months. The volume shocks her just as much as it does her brother.

The crow’s feet and wrinkles between his brows age her brother well beyond his years, and she feels the reflected disappointment curdle in her belly. With a daring she didn’t realise she had – _she tries to avoid touching him, she’s never sure what’ll happen when she does_ – she reaches out to smooth the wrinkles on the bridge of his nose with her thumb. He sighs.

‘Celena, _why_? If you were that insistent on learning, I could’ve-’

‘It wouldn’t upset-’ she stops. That’s not fair to Van, it _would_ upset him if he hurt her. She tries again ‘The King doesn’t love me. He wouldn’t hurt him if he hurt me. It would hurt _you_ , though.’

‘ _Celena_ ,’ he sighs. But he stops, and looks down at her for a long second but stretches into eternity. She tries not to fidget. ‘Is this what you really want?’

‘I barely know myself well enough to know what I want. But I think so.’

 

When she sees Van on the roof later that night, she offers him back the sword he left with her.

The look her gives her has more than a small amount of disappointment in it. ‘You’re quitting?’

‘No.’ She matches Van’s sudden smile, letting the light feeling dance through her. ‘Allen just insisted I use a _decent_ blade. One of his.’

‘That stings, Schezar.’

‘My brother thinks you’re corrupting me.’

Van snorts. ‘Allen would know.’

She laughs, suddenly too content to even try defending Allen. Van smiles lazily at her.

‘Oh, I found these, this morning. I think they’re for you.’ The cards, again. He holds them up in the starlight, just clear enough she can see the shining surface. ‘The Star and the Sun. A promise of a bright future.’

Celena breathes, soaks up the stars and the two moons and the forests of Fanelia spreading out in front of her and silently thanks someone she has never met.

‘So, what are you going to do?’ The lazy voice jolts her out of silent prayers. Van’s eyes are shut, and she suspects he is already half somewhere else, where there are green eyes.

Celena has scars she doesn’t remember, and faces she can’t put to names, and a brother who watches her out of the corner of his eyes and a king for a friend who looks too closely and sees too much. But she is starting to think she can live with that.

‘I’m going to be myself.’

Van smiles. And the only sound she can hear is the rustle of wings.

That night, Celena dreams of nothing at all.

*****

Somewhere on Earth, a girl pulls a feather and a card from her bag and laughs until she cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to letterblade for getting me to rewatch this series for the first time in about 10 years and create the un-beta'd yuletide that never seemed to end. Everything is better the second time round, and I was so much more sympathetic to everyone once you realise that pretty much all the cast apart from Dryden (too cool) and Allen (has no excuse) is actually a teenager.
> 
> Celena, with her anxiety issues, flashbacks and sudden rages probably has what would now be classed as PTSD, which isn't exactly surprising. Not to mention the memory problems from, you know, suddenly changing back from being a dude. It made much more sense for Dilandau to still be part of her than completely gone, but I'm not Isaac Newton, don't ask me how the fate machine works.
> 
> Requested was a strange Van/Celena friendship, how does Celena cope with finding out what she did while a melodramatic pyromaniac dude, Van being a rude little shit and how Allen has the a emotional maturity of a blueberry scone trying his best (my notes to myself went with the less-delicious 'emotional maturity of a potato' but I think I got it). I hope I fulfilled!
> 
> Also, this fic originally ended with the line: 'I'm going to be the first female guymelef pilot' and someday I will get around to writing about that.


End file.
